Background
Mario Rana opened State 48 Brewing, the first and only brewery in Surprise, Arizona in June 2016. They are one of the handful of new breweries opening on the west side of Phoenix. He opened the brewery/restaurant focusing on Arizona craft brews but by October 2016 their first five brewed beers were available: a brown ale, German style hefeweizen, mosaic IPA, porter and a golden/blonde ale. They continued to experiment with other varieties and found some success distributing their beer to other restaurants and bars including the Surprise Stadium during Spring Training.
In 2017 with the 10-barrel brew house struggling to keep up with demand, Rana went looking for another location. He decided on the historic Welnick Building in downtown Phoenix. The brewery will occupy nearly 10,000-square-feet of space within the historic building near 4th Avenue and Van Buren Street. The DTPHX location opened in September 2018 and has four times the brewing capacity than the original brewery in Surprise.
About the same time the third location, State 48 Brewing Funk House opened at Glendale’s Westgate Entertainment District. Westgate is across the street from the Arizona Cardinals’ home field, University of Phoenix Stadium. The 18,000-square-foot venue has a dozen bowling lanes to go along with the brewery and restaurant. Most recently in February 2019 the State 48 Brewery Lager House in North Scottsdale opened.
Experience
We visited State 48 Brewing Lager House in the spring 2019. The Scottsdale location is a large space with the brewing equipment in view of the tasting room. There is a second floor looking down on the tasting room and a large patio area with a second floor overlooking. This location boasts they are the first Arizona brewery dedicated to lagers. On that particular afternoon they had 27 of their own beers available. We enjoyed the Strange Brew Cream Ale, German Pilsner, Ira Haze, a hazy Pale & Northeast x Southwest IPA. They offer quite an extensive food menu although on this visit we only tried beer. All in all a beautiful facility with, I’ll have to say, some of the most comfortable bar stools we have encountered. We will return to try some food and find out what new beers they create.
No nearby lodging noted. When in the area check out OHSO Brewery and Four Peaks Brewing just North on Hayden.
https://www.state48brewery.com/
